Helen Hughes was a superb medium who conducted countless propaganda meetings around the British Isles, in modern times when mediumship was still subject to the antiquated and outdated Witchcraft and Vagrancy Act (formed in 1735).

Helen Hughes was a dedicated Spiritualist whose public mediumship and private séances - during which she was often directly entranced by her sitters' loved ones - greatly impressed countless thousands of people. Her work was recognised to be of the highest calibre, and the genuineness of her gifts was never disputed.

Verbatim records of her spirit messages make astonishing reading. Along with Estelle Roberts and a few other notable mediums of the late twentieth century (such as the trance medium Lillian Bailey) she commanded the stage at large halls and conference centres across the length and breadth of the UK, and her survival evidence was startlingly accurate.

Maurice Barbanell, Editor of the popular newspaper, Psychic News, wrote that the spirit people who communicated with Helen Hughes often referred to her as "Helen the Beloved".

Helen possessed great charisma, and her psychic abilities were remarkably well-developed: Mrs Hughes was a Clairaudient (i.e. she could hear spirit voices).

Helen's mediumship was considered instrumental in the UK government's banishing of the old 1735 Witchcraft and Vagrancy Act, and in its replacing of it in 1951 by the Fraudulent Mediums Act, which at least recognised the existence of genuine mediumship.

Of her clairaudient abilities and her contact with the spirit people, Helen said, 'I hear quite naturally, as though I were using the ordinary ear. The voices sound quite normal. I can tell if it is the voice of a man, woman, or child - or if it is a loud voice or a quiet one. Listening to the voices enables me to give the names, facts and details that provide the evidence.'

The medium heard her spirit voices 'in my ears, or in the region of my solar-plexus...and they vary in clarity.'

Here are some verbatim snippets of Helen Hughes's remarkable clairaudiently-received spirit messages, which she delivered in the late 1930s:

Pointing to a woman in the auditorium, Helen began:

Helen: Is your name Nellie?

Recipient: Yes

Helen: Well, then, you knew a Mr Bramwell; and I have to tell you that Mr Bramwell is here and he's brought Harry and Mrs Wilson. She says she's all right now, and thanks you for what you did for her. She suffered from a weak heart. She tells me that your name is Boynton.

Recipient: Correct.

For another recipient, Helen Hughes received a message "from someone called Eva, who was a musician." She then singled out a woman in the crowd and added: "You are Eva's mother. She played the piano; and she had a companion, Elsie, who has also passed over. Her full name is Eva Huxley."

Recipient: Yes

Helen: (pointing to a woman in the circle) There is a Mrs Richardson in the gallery. I get the name Jimmie Richardson. He worked in an office by himself. He brings Robert and Lizzie, and also Mary Bewick. He tells me that your godmother was Mary McIntyre, and that she was in some way connected with an off-licence for the sale of beer when you were fourteen to seventeen years of age.

Recipient: Quite right!

In a private consultation which was attended by a Mr Hogg and his family, all of whom were perfect strangers to the medium, Helen Hughes delivered the following clairaudiently-received information:

Pointing to Mr Hogg she said, 'There is a young airman here. You are his Dad.' Turning to Mr Hogg's son-in-law she added, 'This boy calls you Ian: and he calls himself Douglas.' And to the two girls who were present she announced, 'And you are his sisters, Isobel and Mary.'

I have recently been participating in a discussion on Paranormalia (www.paranormalia.co.uk). The more I read the more convinced I am that the only way to gain conviction is to experience these things directly. People always seem to be able to offer an alternative explanation without examining the facts reported (eg Crookes testimony and research cannot be accepted because he was accused of having an affair with the medium - an easy accusation to make without evidence).

The Spiritualists: The Story of Florence Cook and William Crookes. New York: Helix Press, 1963. Reprinted as The Medium and the Scientist. Buffalo, N.Y: Prometheus Press, 1984.

The blurb states:

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, superstition and credulity were as widely spread in England among all classes of the population as they are today. Inquiry into the occult became an obsession, not only among the upper classes of society but also among working people. This is the definitive story of Florence Cook, one of the most famous materializing mediums of Victorian England, and William Crookes, an eminent British chemist who investigated Florence and her attendant spirit, 'Katie King'. Trevor Hall, a well-known expert in psychic research, has skilfully and tactfully examined the mediumistic careers of Florence Cook and her sister Kate and their connections with Crookes and with Charles Blackburn, the Manchester businessman.After sifting through all the evidence, including contemporary spiritualist periodicals and many previously unknown documents, Hall comes to some startling conclusions about the seances held by the Cook sisters and the experiments made by Crookes. He is able to throw new and unexpected light on the relationship between Florence Cook and the scientist who risked his professional reputation to save hers. An extraordinary and fascinating story is revealed as the author reveals the strange, shadowy society of the late nineteenth century when 'as many heads as tables were being turned'

A reviewer wrote:

This book portrays medium Florence Cook as an out-and-out fraud, and Wm Crookes as a besotted fool who - beguiled by Florence's charms - not only jettisoned his renowned scientific values for her but connived to cover up Miss Cook's fraud and to unjustifiably keep funds flowing to her from her patron, Mr Blackburn. To my knowledge, Hall is alone in portraying Crookes as a second rate scoundrel. Nor is there any proof for the insinuation that Florence - little more than a school girl - seduced him. Hall goes on to rubbish the entire Cook family as hoodwinking money grabbers, without knowing for sure that they were not held in loving regard by their benefactor, Mr Blackburn. The book's claims are heavily circumstantial.

Hall offers us the hearsay that many years later, during alleged love affairs that a Monsieur Blois and a Mr Anderson claimed with Florence, that she is said to have admitted to an affair with Crookes; and to being fraudulent, and that Crookes knew about this. There is no proof for these claims, but Hall is persuasive.

While the book is well-researched, one also gains the impression that Hall has no intention of letting either of these characters off the hook with anything suggestive of judicious balance. He ignores the positive signs of Miss Cooks' (later Mrs Corner's) mediumship in Europe. Particularly, there is no mention of Gambier Bolton's subsequent research with Mrs Corner that showed her capable of complete materialisation in daylight. He emphasises the negative inferences from his research, while the indisputable evidence is missing. For readers who think materialisation is a fact - based on Gambier Bolton, Geley, Richet and Schrenk-Notzing - reading this book will do them good, to check that they are not too credulous. To me, Hall comes across as a sour debunker, and the same goes for his book on Daniel Home. However his contribution is valuable for the wealth of research material it contains.

Who is Trevor Hall?

Hall was a Perrott student in psychical research at Trinity College, Cambridge (1954-56). He had special interest in conjuring and compiled A Bibliography of Books on Conjuring in English from 1580 to 1850 (1957). His expert knowledge of conjuring was, in part, responsible for the skeptical attitude that became evident as he began to write about physical mediums, many of whom had been caught in fraud. In his early book The Spiritualists (1964), Hall confirmed the belief of many that the phenomena of famous medium Florence Cook were fraudulent and suggested that she was having an affair with Sir William Crookes.His other books on psychical researchers were equally critical. His book on Edmund Gurney (1964), for example, investigated the claimed trickery of G. A. Smith and Douglas Blackburn, whose second-sight act Gurney investigated. Hall's book, though, on the whole was sympathetic to Gurney. His book Strange Things (1968) ruined the reputation of Ada Goodrich-Freer (known in psychical research literature as "Miss X"), and The Search for Harry Price (1977) effectively denigrates the character and work of the famed psychical researcher.Hall also contributed articles on the history of psychical research to the International Journal of Parapsychology. He went on to write several texts on ghosts. During the late 1960s an interest in Sherlock Holmes (whose creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, was a confirmed Spiritualist) emerged, and Hall wrote several popular volumes, including Sherlock Holmes: Ten Literary Studies (1969), The Late Mr. Sherlock Holmes (1971), and Sherlock Holmes and His Creator (1974).he also wrote: The Enigma of Daniel Home. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1984.